A Case Study In The Open Air No. 5 (August 2020, Part 2/2): Updates Website ?

Roman Smith • 6 October 2020
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This publication is a report on the results of my updates made in August 2020 on my external Internet resource. If you want, read:

updated my first part of the report on the establishment of the company;

report on the results of July 2020 updates;

list of all case study updates.

 

As part of this publication, I will touch on the following topics:

 

statistical summary of revenue and traffic received in August;

improvements and improvements made in August;

improvement plans for their implementation in September 2020.

 

And now about everything in order…

 

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Our main achievements

 

The total traffic volume was increased by almost 12%!!!

 

And this brought us a profit of 6 thousand 969 dollars (for comparison, in July we earned 7 thousand 539 dollars 53 cents. 

 

In addition, successful work with mailings brought us $ 1,171. 53 cents (while as of July, this figure was $ 2,802. 80 cents).

 

We also added three dozen new publications.

 

In addition, work continued on optimizing the site's pages.

 

We also conducted a successful search for new niches in the shoulder.

 

And we started testing a new seller of advertising spaces in the media.

 

The result of all this work was these statistics for the month of August.

 

Now let's compare them with the figures for July 2020.

 

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For organic search, there is a positive trend in the range of 2.37% (if as of July this figure was 36.850, in August it was already 37.909).

 

For social platforms, the growth dynamics was more significant, increasing by 28.54% (the June figure here was 3,486 visitors, the July figure was 5,872 people, and in August it already amounted to 7,548 users).

 

Although content ranking is moving at a snail's pace, it is still moving forward. And the cost of social networks is covered by a huge increase in traffic volumes.

 

Social evolution

 

Take a look at the breakdown by traffic growth source:

 

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At the same time, our traffic sources gave us this number of visitors:

 

Facebook: 5165 people. (and in July, this figure was 3142 people);

 

Twitter: 9 users;

 

Pinterest: 2,207 people;

 

Reddit: 13 users.

 

What can I say? Facebook impresses with its capabilities. This is due to our strategy of developing a network of satellites and other assets, in parallel with the acquisition of communities in the social network Facebook.

 

My social media specialists send out relevant content through a tool called Hootsuite several times a day to all pages and communities with the same goal - to attract traffic.

 

And the results were not long in coming.

 

Our profit was $ 6,969.

 

For comparison: in July 2020, we managed to earn 7 thousand 539 dollars.

 

At the same time, 3 thousand 194 dollars were spent to cover all items of expenditure ( at the same time, in may 2020, expenses amounted to 1 thousand 874 dollars).

 

As a result, our net profit is $ 3,194 (compared to $ 5,664 in may 2020).

 

And now about expenses. In total, my expenses for creating content amounted to $ 1,598, of which:

 

$ 100 for my VA fees;

$ 350 to attract targeted visitors from social networks;

$ 400 to purchase the necessary software;

$ 627, for the purchase of everything that is necessary for the good functioning of the web resource.

 

Components of profit

 

And now I will show a breakdown of the profit received based on the percentage ratio as of today. And then we will compare these figures with the indicators obtained in other months and see what level of diversification my online resource provides.

 

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Now let's compare these figures with statistics for July 2020:

 

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And now a few thoughts about the sources from which the income was received.

 

The first one is sending out emails, as well as mailing lists in pdf format. Here I will show everything by segments. There are three of them.

 

"electronic attack" conducted three times during the week. It allows you to test different mailing layouts for many of the 15 thousand mailing list recipients. This is a great opportunity to understand what the effect of this source of traffic attraction will be. After all, it uses a mailing campaign, i.e. a certain sequence of actions performed automatically and during which new subscribers receive emails sent in a certain sequence.

 

Here I added a new email extension "Campaign PDF". Here I am on the starting target page where I organized the distribution of free "buns" posted two more files in PDF format, telling about the offers in my niche. I planned to make this a source of upfront profit for those who sign up for us. And it gave results.

 

Branded social advertising: we profit from brands by reposting them on our social media accounts. Easier money just does not happen!

 

To explain all other points (as it seems to me) there is no sense. And we will tell you quite a bit about them in the following paragraphs of this publication...

 

Amazon vs all other partners

 

Using my previous example, I showed my diversification metrics to other branches.

 

Earlier I wrote about this:

 

As of July 20,I made a profit from other partners in the amount of 35.3% (or 2 thousand 607 dollars). at the same time, my profit from cooperation with Amazon Associates was at the level of 18.3% (which is 1 thousand 352 dollars).

 

And now let's try to calculate something similar by taking the data for August.

 

So, this month I received 43% of the profit from other partner programs (i.e. $ 2,998). at the same time, working with Amazon Associates brought me 19.3% of the profit (or $ 1,346).

 

Yes, it makes a profit! And let diversification go at a snail's pace, but it increases revenues!

 

Email campaign against email bombings

 

Initially, we wanted to make automatic mailings to many recipients. And now this newsletter consists of 37 email templates for mailing. Now it's up to automation.

 

If we talk about the breakdown of profit received in August, it will look like this:

 

working with email - $ 425.63;

the same but in PDF format - $ 49.19.;

email spikes - $ 691.71

 

 And the organization of this last point requires a huge effort. Megatons of effort. After all, you need to compose a lot of emails that can be converted, search for affiliate programs, work on the consciousness of the HTML format of emails, follow up, and make plans.

 

However, the results of this work will be justified if you see a real increase in the audience of visitors. After all, all this is done automatically.

 

And when I come across cool working emails in my mailings, I continue to use them, because I know that they will be useful. This is a two-pronged tactic that gives excellent results.

 

My main innovation in the mailing list is PDF files. I put my affiliate links in them. Although you can download these files to mail recipients at will. I don't encourage them to do this. However, in total, all new subscribers brought me $ 49.19. I wanted to recoup all the costs of attracting new subscribers in advance. And if I succeeded, then all I have to do is count the money.

 

Therefore, the main goal is to get an "infinite" set of emails sent on the machine, in which my products are eventually promoted, and, of course, the traffic attracted to my Internet resource.

 

August innovations

 

Mutually beneficial affiliate program for electronic literature.

 

The third component of all venerable sites will be the sale of products of their own production (digital, physical - it doesn't matter).

 

However, in order not to create personal digital products, I found a seller of electronic products in my niche. This is a modest store for parents, located in Colorado. They sell sets of electronic literature in parallel with the physical products they produce here in America.

 

Initially, it was planned to pay for the rights to electronic literature. Their price ranged from $ 400-1200. for an electronic volume. There was no doubt about their quality and verification by combat.

 

As a result, it became clear to us that this case needs to be promoted, because the deal took place!

 

In the end, we agreed with the owners about this: I will be given six volumes of electronic works with full rights to edit and sell these volumes.

 

What did they get? Advertising on two screens on my project and placing their books and other products in their shopping recommendations.

 

As a result, we concluded a detailed agreement that clearly regulates the benefits of both sides, eliminating any grounds for confrontation.

 

It was a very simple, risk-free opportunity for me to get niche electronic literature for sale on my website…

 

Conclusions: you should search for such blogs and stores. Talk to their owners about exchanging or buying products. And the results will not be long in coming.

 

Creating a store on WooCommerce

 

Having received new assets, I thought about opening a store. I was puzzled by the agony of choosing between Woocommerce and Shopify.

 

And in this direction, I needed this.

 

My store had to share a domain with the subdirectory: I needed a domain that was promoted according to the SEO promotion framework to delegate its indicators to the store. If the site has DR 50, you should not spend resources on promoting new domains or satellites from scratch. I wanted to have a store address like domain.com/shop/

 

Prospects for correcting cross-selling levels of products

 

Availability of a number of payment gateways

 

Small price: this online store will gradually develop, because this is not the main occupation, so I would not like to spend a lot of money without a visible return on this activity.

 

For a high level, the package of requirements was as follows. I preferred WooCommerce due to the following factors:

 

Shopify doesn't have a connection to subdirectories. Here you need a subdomain of the form shop.domain.com or a completely new domain name. This means that you would have to redo the entire site, starting with the design.

you must pay the full price for using Shopify.

Shopify is not configured as WooCommerce via HTML/CSS, plugins, etc.

 

But the main destroyer was the lack of a subdirectory. After all, it seems to me that the inability to use bold links from your site for the benefit of your store without losing reputation, and customer churn is very bad.

 

In short, a well-established platform with a bunch of plugins, payment gateways, and so on allowed me to upload one volume per session. That's why I have enough work to last me for a long time.

 

Facebook community as a source of newsletter subscriptions

 

I really want to expand the list of my mailing list subscribers, because this is a stable base of activists.

 

And the easiest way to do this is by registering on the site using this mail.

 

However, this is only comparable to the volume of traffic you receive, and the process of attracting large volumes of it is moving at a snail's pace.

 

How do I encourage all subscribers to the mailing list to act? Yes, easy! Working with the owners of communities on the social network Facebook!!!

 

This is very easy to do.

 

Question about joining the Facebook community: having received the email addresses of newcomers, I keep them for free.

 

Facebook community ads in pinned post format: the first pinned community message contains a link to go to the target page. And after visiting it, people can register in my checklist.

 

We have adopted this format of work since the beginning of August, and the recipients of the mailing list have shown the following results:

 

840 people expressed a desire to join;

231 people pinned messages.

 

At the same time, hundreds of dollars were spent on paying the cost of renting seats to the owner of the community. It turns out that one participant cost me only $ 0.09. And these results were obtained almost in a month, or rather since the reorganization of the transaction, from the middle of August. In short, we are waiting for a huge increase in the number of subscribers!

 

Later, all of them will become members of the mail campaign. This is necessary to understand overtime and the percentage of its conversion to sales. And if I manage to earn more than a hundred dollars on this, I will willingly continue working in this direction!

 

Conclusions: if you have a selection of emails with automated mailings, you should try to increase the army of your subscribers. Work with Facebook community owners from your niche to establish partnerships in this direction!

 

Note: initially, I had plans to purchase this community from its owner. But he gave me a price of $ 10,000, referring to the huge increase. After all, the community already has 35,000 people. Let me remind you that in the first part of my opus, I talked about buying a community with 55,000 members. It cost me $ 2,500, and it was too expensive, but interesting. After all, our agreement to pay$ 100 monthly was the same as what I would have to do if I bought the community. But much cheaper! The owner was not thinking about selling, but about partnership. Turn on your wits!

 

New shoulder niches?

 

I got a special author who writes great material for the main niche of the site. He knows what to write about, so he does it masterfully.

 

I can only provide him with a list of topics for articles from which he takes those that are interesting to him. He is quick and if he writes about something, then professionally.

 

And now it is loaded with writing 40 publications on the main topic of the site.

 

I don't have the guts to fit into shoulder niches, with potential traction... there are two of them. And here I give an assessment of publications from previous owners.

 

And here is a beautiful graph from the shoulder niches on the topic of pest extermination:

 

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Source: TheSeoProject.org

 

I am currently developing a content map for these niches:

 

The first niche: a lot of great products with very profitable affiliate programs. I liked about a hundred topics here. Especially since I have a cool author for them. So I'll load it with work.

 

The second niche: a lot of options for creating content. There is no focus on products. Great information content. You can make a profit using display advertising and information products. Therefore, you should provide my site with different information. And the pros in this direction still need to be found. After all, my team of authors is busy, and this topic is not their strong suit.

 

Secrets of finding shoulder niches

 

I don't waste time looking for them. I just track competitors and other projects from my niche.

 

Next, I select other niche Amazon Associate sites ranked by these keywords and paraphrase the keywords using AHREFs. After all, I understand that I can get ahead of these resources.

 

After all, I have already created systems on the ground. All that remains is to explore keywords, content outlines, and find the author. And then - a matter of technology.

 

Therefore, I will monitor keywords using rank control tools to understand their behavior over a certain period of time. And I will inform you about it!

 

New media advertising service

 

I'm currently testing a small advertising company. No, it's not AdThrive, MediaVine, or Ezoic at all. The first two refused to work with my project at all because of inconsistency with their policy. And Ezotic has a lot of advertising materials that discourage visitors.

 

But when my current company contacted me, there was no limit to my joy. Their materials look great and load quickly.

 

Advantages:

 

excellent type of advertising materials;

fast loading;

suitable for my site;

ability to install personal target CPMs (which is not possible in Ezotic and others);

 

Disadvantages:

 

the price may be reduced without notice;

the process is not automated like Ezotic etc each ad must be Placed manually;

a lot of conversations to discuss tactics.

 

I liked the ability to mark my target CPMs. They're trying to get in there. My first ad was below all the related posts. These are six active images that the user clicks on to make the transition.

 

I wanted to achieve this CPM goal:

 

US desktop: $12 CPM;

 

American tablet: $6 CPM;

 

US mobile phone: $12 CPM.

 

And I got consent. This is a phenomenal cost of thousands of ad views not times higher!

 

After the test period (a couple of days), CPMs was cut to $ 2.5. And all because their advertising customers were left without profit. According to their scheme, it was necessary to go down in order to correct the situation.

 

And that didn't make me happy. Although they said that gradually they will try to increase CPM'S, so I stayed.

 

Today, the CPM level is around $ 5. This is not what I would like, but it's not bad considering the placement on the page.

 

Now look at the behavior of CPM for 30 days:

 

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Let's take a look at what happens over time. Now I am agreeing to allocate a number of additional places for advertising on this resource.

 

The good thing in this situation is that all ad blocks are independent sources of revenue with specific CPM, and Ezotic and others like it will give a mix of CPM from all advertising places. But I don't have the ability to control individual CPM ad blocks via Ezotic, and this project has such features. And this is fraught with an increase in my profit.

 

Prospects for September 2020

 

For me, they are simply huge and consist of the following:

 

content: place an additional 30-50 publications, and if possible, even more;

we will continue to automate and develop email marketing.

newsletter subscriptions from communities in Facebook groups: tracking the level of profit from new subscribers to the email newsletter;

the study is adjacent the shoulder of niches and content writing;

improving the conversion rate of the first pages: optimize Stas by providing pop-up Windows to the top of the landing pages;

creating hands-on product reviews: my main author likes to write about real products. Therefore, I want to give him the best products for reviews.

 

This update was huge! Covered a lot of events. And thank you to everyone who read this note to the end:-)

 

This is the final publication for August 2020. Let me know about your questions in the comments!

 

It took me a lot of time to create this post (only now more than three hours). Please share a link to this article if it is useful to you.

 


Result: Revenue stays steady at $6,969 (compared to $7,539 in July). New strategy of Facebook Group partnerships, Shoulder Niches, and more.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing Business facebook Product management

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